In each other, we already have all we need

​The average american will spend $1000 on Christmas presents this year. 25% of Americans will go in debt to pay for them. As a country, we will spend over 700 billion dollars - billions with a B - on the gifts we will all unwrap in the week ahead.

And oh by the way, for what it's worth, 70% of Americans feel Christmas is too focused on money.....

So why - why then do we do it? Why do we spend money we don't have on things people don't really want or need?

We do it because marketers are good at selling us on the idea their products can fill the voids in our lives many of us are going through life with. They've successfully hijacked the Christmas story to sell us the idea that there is greater value in giving to one another than there is in simply having one another.

It's a Christmas story that has sadly become too much of our life story.

Last week, I watched the heartbreaking scenes on the news from Kentucky. Entire communities leveled by tornadoes. But there was interview after interview of people standing on the ruins of their homes, people who just kept saying, none of this loss matters - because I still have my kids and my family and my friends.

In my work, I get to talk to a lot of counselors. Out of curiosity, I always ask them - what is the greatest theme people come to talk to you about? Invariably, people are coming to talk about issues they are having with the loss of some one in their life, not some thing.

Do you know, 20% of Americans say they won't even like their Christmas gifts; a higher percentage than that say a year after receiving them, they won't remember the gifts they got or who they got them from.

But lose a someone close to you in life, some people never get over that one.

That's because the Christmas story is a we need each other story, not a we need things story. Do you ever wonder why God chose to introduce Jesus as a baby in a manger - a tiny baby dependent on the people around him to keep him healthy and safe and growing - just like the baby story of anyone reading this.

I personally think it's because Jesus came to give us a we need each other story.

Too often, I think we hijack the Christmas story and make it a 'we need Jesus to keep from going to an eternal hell' story, when the story Jesus often told was a 'we need one another to keep from living in a daily hell' story.

Whether it's ignoring the marketers or listening to Jesus - I don't much care - I just think there is some value in spending a little less time this Christmas thinking of and dreaming up all the things that will make life better, things you will likely forget a year or two from now.

And maybe spend that time clinging a little closer to the people you already have.

If nothing else, it will save you a little money.....